He paused portentously.
“If?” I inquired blandly. “Do have another cigarette!”
“If you had known of his connection with the woman who is known as La Mort?”
That wasn’t precisely what he said. I don’t choose to write the words in any language; but I wanted to knock his yellow teeth down his throat; to choke the life out of him for the vile suggestion his words contained! I dared not look at him; my eyes would have betrayed everything that he was seeking to discover. I looked at the end of the cigarette I was lighting, and wondered how I managed to steady the hand that held the match.
“I really do not understand you!” I asserted blandly.
“Perhaps you may know her as Anna Petrovna?” he suggested.
“Anna Petrovna!” I repeated. “Now, that’s the second time to-day I’ve heard the lady’s name; and I can’t think why you gentlemen should imagine it means anything to me. Who is she, anyhow?”
I looked at him now, fair and square; met and held the gimlet gaze of his eyes with one of calm, interested inquiry. We were fighting a duel, to which a mere physical fight is child’s play; and—I meant to win!
“You do not know?” he asked.